


The Third Man

by aurilly



Category: Lost
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-19
Updated: 2009-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:59:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Miles a year and a half to figure out whom that voice was talking about, and another year and a half to be in a position to do anything about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Third Man

Miles hasn't been in the camp for more than a few hours, but he's already bored. He catches up with Dan and Charlotte, but their news doesn't take more than an hour to exchange. A few of the Oceanic survivors introduce themselves to him, but Miles is pretty sure they'll all be dead soon anyway, so he doesn't get too attached.

When in doubt, he usually wanders around himself, listening in case there's anything interesting to hear. As a child he used to fear his ability, or whatever it is, but he now uses it almost as a source of entertainment.

He spies a makeshift cemetery off a little ways from the camp. It's depressing to see that even more people died _after_ the plane crash, but given how nuts this island is, it's only to be expected.

Recent deaths are usually pretty loud, and the voices weaken in intensity as years go by. The people here have all died within the past three months, so it's kind of a din. Miles tries to focus on one voice at a time.

There's a woman who's freaking out about the fact that Michael killed Ana-Lucia and how she needs to let everyone know he's gone crazy. Ana Lucia appears not to be thinking about much of anything except for _You shot me! What the fuck?_

"Lovely group of people," Miles mutters to himself.

Then there's a voice that's louder than the others, not because her death is necessarily more recent, but probably because she was simply really loud in real life. She's kind of whiny and kind of vapid-sounding, like a Valley Girl. But she's also frantic and scared and passionate. Miles is intrigued.

_There he is! Oh wait, but now he's gone again. Shit, what'll he say? But he saw it, too. I'm not crazy. He doesn't think I'm crazy. It's fine. Shit, what was that. I'm… I've been shot? What the hell? Who shot me? Oh my god, I'm going to die here in the middle of the jungle on Myster Friggin' Island and no one's going to find me. No wait, he's here, he's got me. But he's no doctor. He can't do anything. He just told me he loved me. That's a really big deal for him, I can tell. And he meant it. Can tell that, too. Even if it's just for now, just on the island, doesn't matter. He loves me. Was about to tell him I loved him back, but stupid stupid stupid me! Got distracted by the stupid vision. Shit. I can't speak anymore. Want to tell him so badly, I love him, too. Thanks for everything. Thanks for believing in me, not just taking care of me. That means more. I love you, too…_

Miles usually remains impassive about the people whose voices he hears. There usually isn't enough there in the loop of last thoughts for him to become interested in. But this girl… wow. She's going on and on. For a gunshot wound, it's pretty incredible. Miles can't stop listening, trying to picture what she looked like, what had happened. She was shot, right through the heart---he can sense that much. She was wet. It was nighttime. She was standing alone when it happened, but then someone came to hold her as she died---strong arms, belonging to some man.

A man's voice---soft, focused, pleading, _decent_\---joins the girl's stream of conscious ramblings. _I love you, Shannon. So sorry. Leaving you. Didn't mean to… Love you so much…_

Miles is somewhat disappointed: two people killed, and their last thoughts are that they love one another. Yadda yadda. He's been looking for something less banal from this girl. Miles is about to focus on someone else when things get a little more interesting.

The man's voice continues. _Gotta tell him... He loves you, Shannon... He needs to take care of you now... He's a good guy..._

Who is 'he'? Suddenly, there are more people involved in this than Miles realized. He concentrates harder and realizes that the guy wasn't wet when he died, that he was laying down, already injured in the leg from something else. His death wasn't a shooting at all. He'd been in pain for a long time; a doctor had helped him, but it had been hopeless. Must have been Jack.

Miles kneels down and inspects the crosses stuck in the sand. The names 'Boone Carlyle' and 'Shannon Rutherford' are carved into the wood, deeply and precisely so that they'll weather the rains and wind for longer than sticks normally should. Miles looks around at the other grave markers. They all have names, but none are as meticulously done. Someone put a lot of love and care into these two particular carvings; it surprises Miles more than almost anything he's seen so far, and that's saying a lot. These Oceanic survivors do a lot of running around and posturing about "their people" but it doesn't take a shrink to see the boatloads of trust issues these people have with one another. Enemy camps one day, fighting together the next. Miles has seen it happen a few times already, and he's only been here a week. It's hard to imagine any of them _loving_ one another like whoever loved these two.

"It's going to be hard to break the news to these poor people's relatives when we get back," a kindly voice says behind him. Miles turns around to see one of the survivors looking down at him.

"Uhhh, Rose, right?" Miles vaguely remembers her and her husband introducing themselves to him. She seemed pretty serene, but the husband had eyed him suspiciously.

"Yes, that's right." She offers him an arm and he accepts it to help himself back to his feet.

Miles is curious about the voices he's been listening to, but it's hardly polite to start drilling near strangers about people who died before he showed up. So gestures at the little mounds and states, rather obviously, "You guys have lost a lot of people."

Luckily for him, she's chatty. "More than even these. Eko's buried somewhere in the woods, and Charlie…" She shakes her head sorrowfully. "Charlie's still underwater somewhere, in a Dharma station that's really deep down out there." She points at the endless expanse of ocean.

Miles feels a chill. He's never admitted it to anyone, but Miles's worst childhood nightmare was about drowning. Night after night, he dreamed of being stuck in a submarine, filling with water…

But Rose is looking at him, expecting a response, so he gets over it and continues, "So uh, is everyone here from the plane? Or are they Others, like Juliet, or like that guy who went to the ferry with Sayid… What's his name…?"

"Desmond. No, everyone here is from the plane. A few are from the tail section, though. Except for my husband, we didn't have a chance to get to know them as well as people like..." She points sadly at the two graves he's standing between. "Not as well as people like them."

"Boone and uh... Shannon," Miles pretends to read, even though he's already read their names. He can still hear Shannon telling someone---possibly Boone, but more likely the mystery man---that she loves him. She's drowning out another annoying-sounding girl who's babbling something about diamonds. "Who were they?"

"Brother and sister. Just kids really." Rose sighs, and then chuckles kindly. "I'm sure they would have hated to hear me call them that. But they couldn't have been older than 25."

Miles does a double take. This was the last thing he'd expected to hear. "Brother and sister? Really?"

She nods sadly. "They were so devoted to one another. She was... well, _he_ was really nice. Always tried to help out around the camp. A real hero."

_Ah, a total bitch,_ Miles infers from Rose's hesitation when trying to describe the girl. But he's still confused. "If they were brother and sister, then why do they have different last names?" he asks, trying to make sense of what he's hearing and what he's being told.

Rose starts and kneels down to look for herself, as if he's just told her something new. Visibly surprised, she says, "You're right. I have no idea. Maybe they were step siblings? But they were definitely brother and sister. No question."

Miles continues staring at the two grave markers. "Alright. Whatever," he says, but it isn't really whatever. It doesn't make any damn sense. He's never before encountered a spirit whose dying thoughts are devoted solely to his love for his _sister_. He's about to try to think of a way to find out who the other guy in the equation is when their attention is diverted. Sayid's just come out of nowhere in one of the Zodiac rafts from the freighter and he's barking instructions on how to take people back in that serious accent of his.

Rose closes her eyes for a second to let the import of the moment sink in. "It's finally happening," she whispers. "We're finally leaving."

Miles knows what the men on the freighter are capable of and he knows that this isn't going to be as simple as she thinks it will. But Sayid's attitude seems confident---although, Miles has a hard time imagining that guy seeming anything _but_ confident---so…

"Yeah," he replies non-committally, and with one last look at the little graveyard, he walks out of range of the voices so he can find Charlotte and Dan and concentrate and figure out what they should do.

********************************************

 

It's the kind of thing that Miles would usually mull over for a couple of days. It isn't as though listening to the dead is something new, but for some reason, this particular case intrigues him. However, between time-traveling flashes, deadly nosebleeds, ancient statues, Locke down a well, and, finally, ending up in the Dharma Initiative, the things he had heard about Shannon, Boone, and… he knows that the first person is a woman, but dammit, he really liked that movie and he's going to call the mystery guy The Third Man in his head if he wants to… Anyway, quite understandably, the mystery of Shannon, Boone, and The Third Man is soon forgotten.

********************************************

 

The concept of 'long winter evenings by the fireside' doesn't hold much water on a tropical island, but there _are_ a lot of long evenings. Miles and the rest of them don't really fit in, no matter how much they try. There's something about not being born yet that kind of makes going beyond daily chit-chat with these people difficult. It doesn't help that Miles finds most of the Dharma folks a little bit creepy. It's like Waco, take two, except 20 years earlier.

The rest of the Dhama folk seem to understand that the four remaining "shipwreck" mates (Dan leaves within a few weeks and doesn't come back) are their own little group. For some reason that Miles can't understand, Sawyer tries harder than the rest of them to fit in, and for the most part he succeeds. But, just like the others, he still seems a lot more comfortable when it's just the four of them.

When people aren't allowed to talk about their lives, it becomes _all_ they want to talk about. And so, four incredibly reserved people slowly open up to one another in ways they never would have otherwise.

The two people with the most experiences in common are Jin and Sawyer, but telling stories about their pre-flash lives on the island is made difficult by the fact that Jin, although learning at an impressive rate, lacked the English skills back when they lived on the beach to know the subtleties of what was going on.

Sometimes they ask Juliet about her time on the island. She's hardly tight-lipped, but Miles can't help but notice that she keeps her stories to everyday things, like how the barracks changed between now and when she lived there before, and about her fertility work back home. She never talks about the huge elephants in the room, such as the fact that there's a guy on the island who looked the same in 1954 as he does now in 1975 and that he looked the same, too, when they were in 2004. But there's something about her that scares Miles into never asking.

One night, after they've all individually left the big bonfire celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Dharma Initiative, the four of them retire back to Jin and Miles's house, just like they usually do when they aren't retiring to Juliet and Sawyer's house.

"What should we do?" Jin asks as he and their guests sit down in the living room.

On his way to the refrigerator to get everyone a beer, Miles snorts. "Same thing we do every other night on Mystery Friggin' Island. Nothing." He knows that particular witticism isn't of his own invention, but he can't remember right now where he got it from. When he turns around, holding the plastic connector of a six-pack from his index finger, he sees Jin and Sawyer stiffened and looking at one another with a frozen smirk on both of their faces.

"What's with you two?" he asks on his way back towards them.

"Shannon," Jin breathes wistfully.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Sawyer agrees.

"Who is Shannon? What are you talking about?" Juliet asks calmly.

Miles feels a twinge of something---vague excitement, maybe?---as he sits down and passes the beer around. It's been a year and a half, give or take some time traveling, since he last thought about this, but the memory of that day on the beach rushes back to him. Shannon Rutherford, Boone Carlyle, and The Third Man. Maybe now, long after he's stopped wondering about it, he's about to get some answers.

Sawyer chuckles to himself. "What Miles just said. It sounds like something Shannon would have said. She's a girl who was on the plane with us. You two never met her. Smok---" Sawyer interrupts himself and casts a guilty eye at his girlfriend. "Uh, she was…"

But, as usual, Juliet is too quick for him. "It's okay, James. You're allowed to say she was pretty. I'm sure there's nothing for me to feel jealous about."

"Whew," Sawyer exhales in relief.

"Sticks," Jin announces in that ridiculous clipped English of his that makes everything sound super-serious even when he means to tell a joke. Kind of like that guy Sayid, actually, Miles remembers.

"You remember that?" Sawyer asks. Jin nods, and the two of them laugh together. Miles leans back into the couch and sips his beer, waiting patiently for their little moment to be over. Sure enough, Sawyer soon explains. Gesturing above his seated head, he says, "Legs up to here, she had. Blonde. Total bombshell."

"Had a brother, Boone. Very nice guy," Jin emphatically adds.

"Yeah. She was a real piece of work, though. _You_ would have liked her." Sawyer gives Miles a naughty wink and Juliet rolls her eyes. Everyone knows about Miles's penchant for blondes with attitude.

This all fits in with Miles's hypotheses. The voice had sounded like that of a really hot chick. The kind of chick who knows _exactly_ how hot she is. And the guy's voice had sounded like that of a really nice guy.

"What happened to them?" he asks, trying to act as though he's only marginally interested.

"He fell off a cliff… sort of. Then a few weeks afterwards, she got shot. Horrible accident. Actually, both of them died in accidents."

So that explains at least part of the mystery. And then he gets his answer to the other half.

"Sayid," Jin says, and shakes his head.

"What about Sayid?" Miles asks.

"I was there when she was shot. He would have killed Ana Lucia if it was possible. Never saw him so angry. About _anything._ Scary." Jin grimaces.

Miles almost spits out his beer. Scary is right. Of all the people he'd met, Sayid was the last one he'd have expected to be going out with a leggy, blonde, Valley Girl. He tries to picture it, but can't.

"I didn't know Sayid was seeing anyone on the island," Juliet says, and her usually impassive face twitches with slightly perceptible surprise.

Sawyer looks weirdly down at his hands. "Well, he was. Son of a bitch tortured me over her once. Thought I was keeping medicine from her." He leans back and thinks. "That was only in the first week we got there, too. Never thought about it before, but old Captain Falafel must have been a fast mover to get her so quickly."

But Jin shakes his head. "No, they were not together yet."

Now it's Sawyer's turn to be surprised. He leans forward, clasping his hands together and asks, "How do you know?"

"Sun told me."

Juliet laughs. "Look at you two. I've never heard two men gossip like this before."

They both kind of look down shamefully, and everyone laughs. But they don't stop.

"Not until after the raft fire," Jin continues after a moment's thought.

Maybe Jin was more in the know than they'd thought, Miles realizes.

"Well, maybe he had his eye on her from the beginning, only it took a little while for the ice princess to warm up," Sawyer reasons.

"Maybe," Jin agrees, but he sounds unsure, as though he's trying to remember if Sun had contradicted this. "She and Sun were friends. But only after she started to be with Sayid."

"She got a lot less bitchy once they got together. Started having more friends," Sawyer explains to Juliet and Miles, but the way he says it is as though he's only realizing the fact for himself for the first time. "Guess he mellowed her out. He was more mellow for awhile there, too."

Jin nods in agreement and adds, "Odd couple. Sayid was very serious. Older. Shannon… selfish. Scared. But they were good, with each other. He used to smile a lot with her."

"Yeah, he _did_ smile a lot more back then," Sawyer agrees.

"I can imagine Sayid making someone feel less afraid," Juliet says quietly. "But I can't see him with someone selfish. He struck me as very… selfless."

Miles can't add much to this conversation about people he barely knew if at all, but Juliet's words remind him of that day in the barracks, when ultra-capable Sayid had fallen for Hurley's ruse and gotten captured by Locke. Miles hadn't understood it at the time; Sayid seemed so impenetrable, too smart and strategic to be tricked by anyone, much less by someone like _Hurley_. But looking at the situation in a new light, maybe Juliet is right. Everyone has a weakness, and maybe Sayid's was that he really thought of all of those people as friends, people who would never betray him. They _did_ always speak about him as if they all trusted him implicitly, more than anyone else in the camp. All the stories made it sound that way. And maybe they all trusted him because he trusted _them_, at least, for the most part.

A selfless woobie underneath a tough-guy shell. Miles can imagine the blonde bombshell going for that.

And then he remembers the names carved so meticulously into the grave markers. And he remembers the things Sawyer and Jin have already told him about how Sayid was such a careful guy, so serious, and Miles _knows_. Sayid was carved those names. He carved the first one because Boone was _her_ brother. And then he'd carved the second one for her, to match.

Fucking tragic.

The conversation moves on to other things, but Miles spends the next little while drinking quietly and thinking about it until Sawyer hits him on the shoulder and says, "Earth to Ghengis. What'cha doin'? Is there a corpse nearby or something?"

********************************************

 

Another year and a half go by, and Miles forgets about it again. This time, however, it isn't because of any series of traumatic events. It simply flits out of his mind. Dharma life goes quietly by, the hum-drum routine punctuated every now and then by new recruits, smoking weed some nights in the motor pool, and screenings of new movies that Miles has to pretend he hasn't already seen.

Oh, and then there's also the auspicious event of his own birth. Well… maybe there _are_ some traumatic events.

Either way, Jack, Kate, and Hurley are among the last people he expects to see, but one morning, there they are. Miles can see the repressed hysteria crippling Sawyer's posture; this is going to ruin everything.

And then, just to make matters worse, _he's_ back, too, except not with the rest of them.

Miles knows he should be thinking of something useful, knows he should be freaking out about the fact that Radzinsky thinks Sayid is a hostile and how the hell are they going to deal with this. But all he can think of, as he looks at Sayid, is first, how completely lost and _helpless_ he looks, so different from the hyper-confident, hyper-assertive soldier-type he remembers. And second, all Miles can think of is the fact that _this_ guy is his mystery man, the man Shannon Rutherford never had a chance to tell she loved.

_Oh god, so sappy._

Taking a deep breath and trying to pull himself together, Miles decides he must be going soft in his old age.

********************************************

 

With everyone back, the old trust issues have returned. Word gets round to Miles that the vote to execute "the hostile" was unanimous, which means that Sawyer voted, too. Between that, and the fact that Jin was the one who'd been knocked out, and the way Juliet and Kate have been so gung-ho about saving Linus's life, it feels like there's almost no one left in whom Miles can confide.

He knocks on the door of Jack's and Hurley's house. Although he wants to get this off his chest, Miles almost hopes they aren't there. They'd hardly had time when they were all here before to have intimate fireside chats and bond, but Miles feels like there's something different about the formerly bold and bossy doctor. He's different in the way Kate and Sayid also seem different---quieter, insecure, depressed, lost. Even Hurley is more subdued than he used to be. Seems like rescue didn't agree with any of them.

Hurley appears to still be at work, but Jack is home, and welcomes Miles in with a friendly enough wave.

"Hey, Miles. What can I do for you?" he asks with a mild smile, leaning against the back of the couch.

Miles feels ridiculous, just standing there in the middle of the living room of a guy he barely knows and who isn't even acting in the way Miles remembers him having acted in the past. He starts babbling. "I was just… so Sayid is just _gone_. None of you guys have even mentioned him. And none of my guys seem to give a shit. And, well, shouldn't we look for him or something?"

This is why he came, and it's come out kind of weirdly, but for Miles, this is the question upon which everything hinges. It's killing him that no one else seems to agree. Miles gets why Sayid did it. Linus ruined, or _will_ ruin a lot of lives, and no one had a chance to give Sayid the 'what happened, happened' memo. Miles gets it. Jack gets it. He thinks Sawyer got it. Hurley hasn't expressed an opinion. Actually, it's just the women who have their panties in a twist. Damn women. He's usually just stayed in the shadows and followed Sawyer's lead, but on this, Miles feels like he needs to take a stand.

Jack's simply mulling it over. "I've been thinking the same thing, but Sawyer's the one with the resources. I don't like the idea of Sayid out there alone, and I _definitely_ don't like the idea of them potentially catching him again. It's just that I honestly don't know what we can do."

"You guys are friends, right? I mean, you spent all those months together. You spent _years_ together! Why don't any of you people _care_?" Miles is flabbergasted at Jack's passivity. He thinks of Sayid on the beach that last day, ready to get in the raft and start shuttling people to safety, but throwing away what he'd then thought was his chance at escape to help Kate go look for Jack in the woods. Just because she asked for his help and because Sayid didn't want to abandon Jack. Juliet was right; he _is_ pretty selfless. And now Jack can't even get off his butt to do something when Radzinsky's got guards on duty with orders to shoot on sight.

"Yeah, I guess so. We spent a lot of time together during the first year---Sayid, Hurley, me, Kate… But after his wife died, we didn't see or hear from him for two years until a couple of days ago."

"His _wife?_ What about Shannon?" Miles can't help but blurt out, irrelevantly. It's like the revelations never stop with this drama.

Jack stops. "You know about Shannon?" he asks.

Miles purses his lips. "We've spent three years living in a tiny cult where the only people who know the truth about us are us. We talk a lot."

Jack laughs but there is no mirth in it. "I guess you probably have. But yeah… it's not what you think. Nadia was from Sayid's hometown, but they hadn't seen one another in years. They were never actually together until when we got back from the island. It only lasted a year, though. She was killed in a hit and run."

"That's awful," Miles whispers. Both his girlfriend and his wife had died violent deaths. No wonder Sayid had looked so haunted when Radzinsky had brought him in.

"Yeah. And after that, Sayid dropped off the face of the earth."

"Working for Ben," Miles says. Thank goodness Hurley talks a lot, or else Miles would know next to nothing about these people.

"Yeah. I don't think that ended well." Jack sits down, and Miles wants to shake the dreamy look off his face. Jack's actually getting lost in a reverie when what Miles wants is action from the former leader. It's like he's almost forgotten there's a dire situation right outside his window.

"Wow. Shannon. Haven't thought about her in awhile. You know, if someone had lined everyone up on our first day on this island and asked me to guess who would get together, Shannon and Sayid would have been the _last_ pair I'd pick." Jack chuckles to himself and settles further into his seat, really getting into the reminiscences. Miles notices that he's wearing the exact same expression of bemused but fond incredulity that marked Jin and Sawyer's faces when they'd talked about the couple that evening. Miles knows he should stop him and get back to business, but by this point, he's realized that he has a sort of weakness for this particular story, and the dribbles of information always seem to come when he least expects them. So he lets Jack keep talking. "But you know what? They were great."

And then he gets all moony and Miles knows he's comparing the memory of Shannon and Sayid's island romance to his own stupid Kate drama. Hurley's told Miles all about that, too, but even if he hadn't, it would have been obvious enough.

"He didn't speak for a week after she died," Jack continues. "Not to anyone. He was heartbroken. And then he had some rage issues… And then… and then he almost never spoke of her again. I've never really thought about it before, but Sayid probably never really dealt with that properly. I should have talked to him about it, tried to help him, make sure he was okay. I don't know what I would have done if…" He doesn't finish the thought.

There's an awkward pause, but Miles has no idea what to say, not having been there at the time. Thankfully, Jack shakes himself and returns to attention.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, why don't you ask Sawyer what we should do? And let me know what he says. I want to help."

Miles mumbles some thanks and soon leaves, fuming. It was a completely useless visit. Whatever Jack's smoking, Miles wants some, because he doesn't get how else the guy can be so calm about everything. _Typical,_ he thinks. _Shit's hitting the fan, and all anyone can think about are their love lives._

********************************************

 

There isn't much time and it all feels pretty hopeless. The Dharma Initiative is trying to kill them. The Hostiles are probably trying to kill them. And given that Jack and Sayid are currently rewiring a hydrogen bomb in the back seat of the van, Miles's own people are trying to kill them.

At times like these, when nothing makes sense anyway, the little things that shouldn't matter become the things that matter the most. So, when Jack swans off on his unstoppable mission of stupidity to blow up the island and reset time, Miles walks around the van to where Sayid sits, bleeding from the gut. If Jack's plan doesn't work, Sayid will die and what Miles has to say probably won't matter. If Jack's plan _does_ work, Sayid will never have met the girl and what Miles has to say probably won't matter. And yet, still Miles needs to say it.

Miles thinks these people must be rubbing off on him, because now all _he_ can think about are people's love lives.

The problem is that he's still slightly scared of the guy. Even though by now, blabber-mouth Hurley has told him everything there is to know about his mystery---how they'd first gotten to know one another because of French, how they had a fight when she wanted him to kill Locke, how Sayid had taken her on all these dates somehow, how they'd even almost moved in together as much as two people could in the camp---Hurley has also told Miles that Sayid once killed someone with just his ankles. And how just the other day he killed someone with a dishwasher. He doesn't look like he's in a state to do much damage to anyone right now, but one never knows.

"Er, Sayid?" he says hesitantly.

"Yes, Miles?" Sayid's voice is somehow patient and condescending at the same time.

Miles crouches down and offers Sayid a drink from his water bottle. He decides to just launch right into it. "I think you already know about me, right? About what I can do?" Miles looks at him meaningfully, hoping that he won't have to go into background details. There isn't time for that.

Sayid gives him this withering look of, _How is this relevant?_ but politely replies, "That you have a way of communicating with the dead? Yes, I am aware." He says it like it hurts him to admit such silliness, but after everything they've all seen on this crazy island, Miles's talent isn't the showstopper it once was.

"Great. Ok, well, back when we were at your camp on the beach… you know, from when you guys were here before… in the future." He shakes his head. Now is _not_ the time to trip over the time frames. "I was walking around your guys's graveyard and I heard someone…"

"A dead someone, I assume," Sayid interjects dryly, his eyes closed and his voice sounding tired. He really isn't making this any easier, but Miles pushes ahead.

This has been going on intermittently in his head for so long that it comes out as an inarticulate and unromantic jumble. "Yeah. A dead someone. Her last thoughts were about how she was never going get to tell someone that she loved him. Even though he had just told her he loved her. How she was going to die and he would never know, and how she hated that, because she really _had_ been about to tell him, but… but she got shot."

Sayid was already kind of sweaty and pale-looking from the gunshot wound and blood loss, but now he's turned an even more awful shade of green, and Miles wonders for a moment if this was a bad idea.

"Shannon. Shannon…" Sayid whispers. His voice chokes between the syllables the first time he says her name, but the second time sounds like some sort of exotic song.

Miles nods. "Yeah. Shannon. I'm pretty sure you were the guy she was talking about. So yeah, she loved you back. I just thought maybe you'd like to know," he finishes lamely, and shrugs.

Miles knows that between the moment of Shannon's death and now, Sayid has killed people with ankles and dishwashers, has faced a freighter-full of the scariest motherfuckers Miles has ever met, has been married and widowed, has sold his soul to Benjamin Linus, has been magically dragged back to the island he worked so hard to escape only to find himself in a time period he doesn't belong in, has shot little Benjamin Linus, has become so disillusioned with life that he actually believes in Jack's cracked-out plan. He's hopeless and dying and more broken than Miles has ever thought anyone could be.

And yet, a smile still crosses Sayid's face and Miles can tell he's a couple of miles and thirty years away. He opens his eyes and reaches for Miles's hand. "Thank you," he says softly. "Thank you, Miles. I… I did want to know. " His voice trails off, but the smile remains. Miles finally feels satisfied. He's completed his task. There's nothing else to say.

It doesn't really matter, given that a few minutes later, the entire world goes silent anyway.


End file.
